Jirble: To pour out (a liquid) with an unsteady hand: as, he jirbles out a dram—www.Wordnik.com

Curglaff: The shock felt in bathing when one first plunges into the cold water—John Jamieson’s Etymological Scottish Dictionary, 1808

Spermologer: A picker-up of trivia, of current news, a gossip monger, what we would today call a columnist—“The Word Museum” (Kacirk)

Tyromancy: Divining by the coagulation of cheese—“The Word Museum” (Kacirk)

Beef-witted: Having an inactive brain, thought to be from eating too much beef.—John Phin’s “Shakespeare Cyclopaedia and Glossary,” 1902

Queerplungers: Cheats who throw themselves into the water in order that they may be taken up by their accomplices, who carry them to one of the houses appointed by the Humane Society for the recovery of drowned persons, where they are rewarded by the society with a guinea each, and the supposed drowned person, pretending he was driven to that extremity by great necessity, is also frequently sent away with a contribution in his pocket.—“The Word Museum” (Kacirk)

Englishable: That which may be rendered into English—John Ogilvie’s “Comprehensive English Dictionary,” 1865

Carmel Lobello is the business editor at TheWeek.com. Previously, she was style editor at Death + Taxes Magazine and an editor at DeathandTaxesMag.com, where a version of this story originally ran. Follow her on Twitter @carmellobello.